The treatment of patients in hospitals, clinics and other health care settings usually involves receipt by the patient of medical items. These items may include prescription items such as drugs and medications. Medical treatment may also involve other nonprescription medical items such as medical and surgical supplies, as well as consumable medical equipment. To serve the needs of patients in a health care setting, sufficient stocks of such medical items must be kept available for use. Because such items may be relatively high in cost and/or relatively large quantities of such items may be consumed, it is important for the health care provider to accurately control and track the use of such items and to accurately allocate the charges associated with the use of such items to patients.
Systems and methods for tracking the use of medical items have been previously developed. Examples of such systems and methods are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,404,384; 5,533,079; 5,790,409; 5,848,593; 5,912,818; 5,993,046; 6,019,249; 6,073,834; 6,112,506; 6,141,942; and 6,163,737, the disclosures of all of which are incorporated by reference as if fully rewritten herein.
While the previously developed systems provide useful devices and methods for tracking the use of medical items, further improvements are possible. Specifically, persons who must obtain medical and surgical supply items from storage may wish to do so more quickly while still maintaining adequate security and tracking of the items. In addition, persons who are taking such medical items from storage may often know exactly where a particular desired item is located and may benefit by being able to access and take the item with a minimum of delay. In other cases, persons may be unfamiliar with the location of a particular desired item. In such situations a person may benefit by having a system which guides the user to a particular item that they have indicated that they wish to find. In other situations, persons may wish to take from adjacent storage locations a number of different types of medical items. In such cases the medical professional taking such items may wish to take the items during a single occasion when a lockable storage cabinet or other controlled storage location has been opened. In such cases it may be useful for the person to indicate to the system the types and quantities of each medical item they are taking as quickly as possible.
Thus there exists a need for improved methods and systems for controlling and tracking the taking of medical items.